Mo Speights: Clippers need to 'just try something new' to get mojo back
LOS ANGELES – Mo Speights has always been a tell-it-like-it-is kind of guy.
Long before he became part of the Clippers’ much-improved second unit, back when he was a beloved member of the Golden State Warriors’ group of reserves that inspired their “Strength in Numbers” motto and helped win a title, the veteran big man once called out the Clippers stars with whom he would later join forces.
“It’s not really Blake Griffin; it’s all Chris Paul for real,” Speights, sitting near the loading dock inside the Staples Center, once told me about the edginess that used to define these Clippers-Warriors affairs. “Chris Paul starts all of that stuff. Before Chris Paul came here, the team was not like that. It’s just two teams going hard at each other.”
Ah, the good, old days.
So much has changed since then, namely the Clippers’ ability to stay in the ring with a Warriors team that – both before and after the arrival of Kevin Durant – has dominated the Western Conference the past two seasons. Golden State’s 115-98 rout on Wednesday night at Staples Center was merely the latest one-sided affair, the Clippers not only losing to the Warriors for a seventh consecutive time but doing so without a modicum of might.
Other than Draymond Green (22 points on eight of 10 shooting, a plus-25 rating) having his way with Blake Griffin (12 points on five of 20 shooting, a minus-12), the Warriors weren’t even all that impressive. Durant had a rare off-night from the field (five of 17 shooting), and back-to-back MVP Steph Curry missed all eight of his three-pointers. This was a something’s-gotta-give game that featured the league’s top-rated defense (the Clippers) and its best offense (the Warriors), and it was unofficially over after Golden State led 37-19 entering the second quarter.
Speights wasn’t the only truth-teller in the house afterward, as Clippers coach/president of basketball operations Doc Rivers hit the mark when he described the demoralizing defeat by saying, “I thought they took us out of our stuff. We stopped trusting. And I really never thought we got our spirit back at the beginning.” But Speights’ latest candid commentary, so much different this time because he has a view of the Clippers from the inside, was both fair and fascinating. Or, as the kids say, straight fire.
“First we need to start really just (leaving) the refs alone,” Speights told reporters. “Guys just got to sacrifice, do some other things than scoring, do some other things than your personal goals. Just try something new. They’ve been doing it here for four or five years and it hasn’t been working so it’s time to try something new.”
Who knows how the comment will play inside the Clippers locker room, but the proper response for all involved would be to head for the closest mirror. The Clippers are, in fact, peerless when it comes to being obsessed with the officials. They have a formula that has failed, and that needs to be fixed. Speights was merely stating the obvious here.
“I think it just starts with the way we play, our intensity, our spirit,” Griffin said. “I thought we had a good practice yesterday, with the right spirit, and worked on the things we wanted to work on. We started out that way tonight, maybe, and it went away pretty quickly. We have to be a little bit more resilient.”
“(It’s) mojo, or whatever you want to call it. We haven’t been playing the same type of basketball. If that’s what mojo is, then yeah.”
For those keeping score, that’s a league-best 19-3 record for a Warriors team that has now won 15 of its past 16 games and a Clippers stretch in which – after leading the pack with a 14-2 start – they have now lost five of seven games. As mid-December handicapping goes, it’s the defending champion Cavs (15-5), the Warriors, the Spurs (18-4) and everyone else right now.
But these Clippers, who had so many buying into their latest formula during their hot start, are nothing short of confounding. Just six days prior to the Warriors game, remember, they routed the Cavs 113-94 in Cleveland.
And then, this.
The stakes have never been higher for this franchise. Paul and Griffin are likely to become free agents this summer, while J.J. Redick is headed for unrestricted free agency. Rivers made the choice to keep this core together, in large part because of his belief that bad luck (i.e. injuries) played as big a part in their past failures as anything.
But this humiliating loss to the Warriors was something they could have controlled, and now we wait to the next meeting, at Oracle Arena on Jan. 28, to see if they can ever measure up again. Speights can only hope he has something more flattering to say when that time comes.